DIRECTED by Shine’s Scott Hicks, Coventry-born star Clive Owen is on career-best form in a drama which illustrates what it’s like to be left as a single parent following the death of your partner.

The Boys Are Back is a life-affirming illustration of the fact that it’s the friends and family living around you who are most important – as departing Prime Minister Gordon Brown acknowledged this week. Older bereaved children should find this moving and reassuring.